While trawling through the forums for xkcd I found a reference to drawball and wondered what it was. Turns out it's a Flash application that allows anyone to draw on a ball (actually a circle), which sounds fairly naff but isn't.
To draw, you have to zoom in - the zoom level is 4096 times the size of the full circle. You get given a limited amount of ink and can change nib size and colour using simple controls. The amount of ink you have available decreases as you draw and increases over time. Many people are drawing on the ball at the same time and because of this, nothing is permanent.
There are some surprisingly good pieces of art considering the rudimentary tools available and there is a showcase of these at the drawball hall of fame.
Finally a new feature is the drawball playback which shows a history of what the ball looked like at a speed of 40 hours per second.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
50 office-speak phrases you love to hate
Continuing with the theme of lists here are 50_office-speak phrases you love to hate from the BBC News Magazine
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Gallery: 10 most annoying programs on the Internet | ZDNet Photo Gallery
Gallery: 10 most annoying programs on the Internet | ZDNet Photo Gallery
Takes a while to navigate to each page to come up so for references the entire list is:
10: Adobe Reader
9: Apple (particularly sneaky installs of Safari while downloading QuickTime Updates)
8: Windows Update
7: RealPlayer (more "helpful" add-ons than you can shake a stick at)
6: Java (IN YOUR FACE)
5: Yahoo (knows less about its users than the queen does about shopping in Lidl)
4: Norton Antivirus (should be consigned to Hell)
3: Preinstalled software bundles (useless below-par tat)
2: Outlook/Exchange
1: Flash
Takes a while to navigate to each page to come up so for references the entire list is:
10: Adobe Reader
9: Apple (particularly sneaky installs of Safari while downloading QuickTime Updates)
8: Windows Update
7: RealPlayer (more "helpful" add-ons than you can shake a stick at)
6: Java (IN YOUR FACE)
5: Yahoo (knows less about its users than the queen does about shopping in Lidl)
4: Norton Antivirus (should be consigned to Hell)
3: Preinstalled software bundles (useless below-par tat)
2: Outlook/Exchange
1: Flash
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Friday, March 07, 2008
FLASH! Ah-aah Another thing I didn't know
QUESTION:
In your latest WXPNews you wrote: "What's more, if you defrag a flash drive, you'll shorten its life because flash memory can only do a certain number of writes before it wears out." I didn't know that! I haven't had one die yet. How long might they last? Any difference between brands? Cheers - Jeremy
ANSWER:
I was surprised at the number of readers who wrote to say this was news to them. Typical flash chips last for anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 "flashes" (writes to the disk) to a particular location in memory, but some older/cheaper flash drives may start wearing out at 10,000 flashes. Reading the memory doesn't wear it out. You can read more details about how this works here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/CRAC5G/080304-Thumbdrive-Memory
This is a concern of many regarding the new trend to substitute flash memory for hard disks in laptop computers. However, the newest flash chips can support up to a million writes per block (with 8000 blocks per chip). With typical use, they'll last for many years. These are the type of flash chips that are being used as solid state memory in computers, and it's unlikely they will wear out before the system becomes obsolete. Read more about that here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/CRAC5G/080304-Solidstate-Storage
With low cost flash cards (as with any media), it's always a good idea to regularly back your data up to another location just in case.
In your latest WXPNews you wrote: "What's more, if you defrag a flash drive, you'll shorten its life because flash memory can only do a certain number of writes before it wears out." I didn't know that! I haven't had one die yet. How long might they last? Any difference between brands? Cheers - Jeremy
ANSWER:
I was surprised at the number of readers who wrote to say this was news to them. Typical flash chips last for anywhere from 100,000 to 300,000 "flashes" (writes to the disk) to a particular location in memory, but some older/cheaper flash drives may start wearing out at 10,000 flashes. Reading the memory doesn't wear it out. You can read more details about how this works here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/CRAC5G/080304-Thumbdrive-Memory
This is a concern of many regarding the new trend to substitute flash memory for hard disks in laptop computers. However, the newest flash chips can support up to a million writes per block (with 8000 blocks per chip). With typical use, they'll last for many years. These are the type of flash chips that are being used as solid state memory in computers, and it's unlikely they will wear out before the system becomes obsolete. Read more about that here:
http://www.wxpnews.com/CRAC5G/080304-Solidstate-Storage
With low cost flash cards (as with any media), it's always a good idea to regularly back your data up to another location just in case.
More Gary Gygax
My other favourite webcomic, XKCD, has now done a Gary Gygax Tribute comic.
It's not as eloquent as the one I posted yesterday but it made me laugh out loud.
It's not as eloquent as the one I posted yesterday but it made me laugh out loud.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
R.I.P. Gary Gygax
I know this is already old news ( a couple of days ) but I don't read newspapers and only found out by catching up on my favourite web comic: Order of the Stick that has made a tribute comic as part of its ongoing storyline that says what I would like to have said only far more eloquently than I could have. The UK's Telegraph Newspaper also has a decent obituary.
And finally, a couple of comments from The Register
"Not only can I recall spending hours during my youth playing D&D and AD&D, I can also remember some of my early coding attempts such as different sided dice, character generators, random encounter generators etc." by Antony Pearce
"some people get a country mourning for them .. a few get the whole world .. this guy has the flags lowered in worlds without number" by Kurt Lundqvist
And finally, a couple of comments from The Register
"Not only can I recall spending hours during my youth playing D&D and AD&D, I can also remember some of my early coding attempts such as different sided dice, character generators, random encounter generators etc." by Antony Pearce
"some people get a country mourning for them .. a few get the whole world .. this guy has the flags lowered in worlds without number" by Kurt Lundqvist
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